


If It Was All Leading Here

by ScarTissue



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, But also, Fluff, I WROTE THIS TO ANDY YOU'RE A STAR, Jacks still not okay, M/M, Pre-Slash, but he might be if bunny sticks around, i guess, more like We're-Definiantly-More-Than-Friends-But-God-Forbid-We-Talk-About-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 16:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2157624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarTissue/pseuds/ScarTissue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack shrugged his shoulders and looked away, gaze fixed firmly on the horizon line.</p><p> </p><p> “Could’ve been better,” he says, deliberately nonchalant. “I’m glad I got to see you though.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	If It Was All Leading Here

**Author's Note:**

> I really did the killers screw with me bad

The thing about life is, it’s so damn  _permanent_.

 

_Death_ , on the other hand. Death offers a short chance to change like life never could. It takes something sad and lonely and wore down by the constant  _trying_ , the never ending left-foot-right-foot  _getupgetup **getup**_  and transforms it back into a small, bright hope, with all the potential in the world. And it only takes a moment before that hope is thrust from a cool, dark place back into the harsh light at the end of the tunnel, blinded from the intensity into forgetting the fleeting minute it had to rest before it breathed again. 

Death runs on for only a millisecond, but life snatches your hair with sticky fingers and drags you unwillinginto the future, no regard for fear or ambition, or all the tragedy that may ~~will~~ befall you. 

Death may be the final result of any action for some, but life always wins in the end. Regimes rise and fall, wars are waged and won and lost, whole galaxies can be rendered mute in the symphony of the universe but life still screams onward relentlessly, marches on with spartan strength and a bruising grip on the scruff of some poor souls neck, denying them the shortest period of peace that exists.

That was MiM’s biggest mistake, Jack muses one cold afternoon with frost growing on his fingers from dry anger, too old a song in his mind to put any real vehemence in the familiar tune, curled up in the hollow of an ice berg on the literal edge of the arctic.  _He should never have let me know the quiet of the dark if only to put me back under the unforgiving sun._

What Jack has taken to calling Pitch’s statue in his mind can be seen on the shoreline from his perch, a mottled grey and black mess of spikes that only peeks above the snow drifts. Jack simply watches it for a few minutes, observing the windswept snow cloak and then reveal it again as he makes the most of the precious little time he takes to wallow in old heartache before obeying his center’s cries for relief, and seeks a pick-me-up snowball fight or prank, maybe hot cocoa at North’s if things are particularly bad. A swell far off kicks the ice berg up with the incoming tide, pushing Jack’s line of sight to just above the cliff and-

 

Far off from the edge, just a speck compared to the towering monster of frozen fear and sand, A man that looks more like a shadow than a general is standing in front of the statue, posture straighter than it has any right to be. Weather he is facing it or the Guardian cannot be determined. 

Jack’s hands tighten around his ankles so fast the joints crack faintly, and the breath he lets out under his hood is so cold he expels ice crystals into the air, onto his knees and elbows and staff. He doesn’t allow himself a thought before he flies off, shooting as far south as he can before unfrozen ground appears under him, then taps the butt of his staff on it until a hole appears before him, jumping down the tunnel without hesitation. He doesn’t know weather to be happy or not that he went flying off in that certain direction, crashing down one path or another. He never does. 

 

The warren is overbearingly muggy when Jack reaches it, tropical flowers and trees blooming in the hothouse Bunny has recently created, saving as much of the rain forests as he can. Jack chuckles mirthlessly to himself as he dodges the long stems of purple orchid hanging from the mouth of the tunnel’s exit so overgrown they sweep the dirt like a fragile curtain, draped out until they’re tangled on the branches and stems of every plant in the next ten feet.  _Oh, if I believed in symbolism_.

"Frostbite?"

Jack feels his heart give a strange thump in response to the deep voice calling him from around the turn of the rock wall, tone curious and calm instead of the annoyed rebukes he was so accustomed too. Things like this still took him by surprise, sometimes. He tries for a smile as he saunters lazily around the corner, and it comes with more resistance than it might of, if he was sure Pitch hadn’t been watching him. The question of what drew them both there, and if they were the same thing or not unsettled Jack in a very deep way. _Life may drag me on_ , he reminds himself,  _but I chose this_.

"Hey, Cottontail."

Bunny had been painting, and returned to doing so as soon as Jack had answered him. The small egg was wriggling slightly in his grasp, tiny legs kicking uselessly in the broad fingered paw holding it. The lagamorph cursed as it began to twist itself slowly, smearing light blue paint across furry paws. 

"Maybe it doesn’t like the color," Jack suggested casually.

 

Bunny glared at him and released the egg, watching it trot happily towards the color river in the distance. He sighed heavily as he put down his brush and sank onto his back in the dewy grass, throwing one arm over his eyes to block out the setting sun. 

Jack carefully made his way to his side, stepping over the various streaks of light blue covering the ground in a semi circle where Bunny had been sitting, some long dried and crusty while others were still runny from dew, cerulean to robins egg to a deep, arctic ice bleeding out into the dirt. He leaned back on his hands with legs drawn up, reveling in the wetness of the air. He always had enjoyed this kind of heat. Just right for a storm. “Rough day?”

"You have  _no_  idea.”

Jack didn’t respond, but rather turned his head to stare at Bunny as he lay sprawled out in the twilight. Bunny hadn’t used a lot of words to  tell him his story, stoic like only survivors can be, but when further questioning led him to Tooth he found that she used far too many, stomach dropping as the full tale stretched before him, the universe an infinitely crueler and sadder place than it seemed before. Jack’s now four hundred years seemed miniscule in respect to him. (However, he was beginning to think that their experiences had been too different to really compare.  _If death was a relief, it didn’t last long.)_

Bunny lifts his wrist to peer at Jack with one bright green eye as the lull in conversation went on peacefully, forests of a lost world far from here looking up at him. “You?”

 

_He isn’t like me_ , Jack realizes clearly for the first time, any room for doubt or suspicion washed away in those vibrant eyes, shining with a light that refuses to go out, sometimes sad, maybe burning, but never as hard or dim as Jack’s can get when he’s low.  _He isn’t angry like I am, not tired. He can’t ever be, he’s simply never known what he’s missing. What’s being stolen from him every day, with every breath._

_This day won’t **end**  for us. Not really. And I don’t think he sees that for what it is._

 

Jack shrugged his shoulders and looked away, gaze fixed firmly on the horizon line. “Could’ve been better,” he says, deliberately nonchalant. “I’m glad I got to see you though.”

Bunny props himself up on his elbow, all he needs to move to match Jacks smaller frame, and thick fingers angle Jack’s face towards his own, the grip on his chin firm but in a gentle sort of way.

"Easter rush s’late this year," he says, eyes locking with Jack’s own bright blue, and he’s suddenly intensely aware of the particular paint color spilled around them. “‘Sides," Bunny continues, "Ah’m not gonna bar you from the Warren or anything. Just try to be patient with the weeks leading up to the big shindig, yea?"

Jack smiles softly. He isn’t sure what to make Them, capital T, in these small moments. An embrace that lasts a bit too long, strong hand tugging his pale one along occasionally, falling asleep at a meeting on North’s spacious couch and waking up with an arm around his shoulder, half in Bunny’s lap. Somewhere in his mind he’s sure that this transcends mere friendship, but who knows whats normal for Jack Frost and the Easter Pooka?

_That wasn’t what I meant._

"Thanks, Bunny."

 

Bunny smiles back this time, eyes all soft and hazy with affection, and Jack can feel his heart give that little _thump_  again. Bunny’s hand abruptly leaves his chin and Jack gasps as he’s pulled into Bunny’s lap with one paw on his hip, the other curling into the curve of his jaw, head pressed to the Pooka’s chest. 

 

"Hey!"

 

"S’too bloody hot in here!" Bunny’s whining reverberates through his rib cage straight into Jack’s ear. He falls back and takes the Winter Spirit with him, curled up stiffly on his broad front. "We’ll both feel better if we get some shut eye, snowflake." He raises his head to peer at Jack imploringly. "I can’t sleep when its this damn sticky out!"

"And whose fault is that!" Jack protested, wriggling in Bunny’s iron grip, arms pinned under him.

The Pooka shifts under him and grasps his thigh, yanking his legs apart so they’re chest to chest while Jack straddles him. The winter spirit bites back a yelp when Bunny’s hand travels rather slowly from his leg and hikes up his hoodie, resting it on his cool back. “That’s the stuff,” he sighed, huffing softly into Jack’s hair. “Things’ll be better in the morning,” he murmured again. “You’ll see.”

_Easy for you too say._

Jack glares up at him, as much as he can under a leaden hand, then sighs. He can only pretend for so long, and goddammit he’s comfortable. As Jack situates himself he lays an ear directly in the middle of Bunny’s chest, and starts counting heartbeats. 

 

_Maybe its not so bad_ , he finds himself musing again,  _if its all been leading here._

He can already hear Bunny snoring, so Jack takes a chance and burrows deeper into the warmth all round, and presses a kiss to Bunny’s heart. Maybe deep in there, something tight and aching is loosening too.

"I’m so glad I got to meet you." he whispers. 

**Author's Note:**

> Er... Hi! Haven't posted in a while... But I'm trying I swear.


End file.
